Learning to Live
by KuraiFriendku
Summary: Because some gods take their immortality a little more seriously than others.


The woman coughed. The world was dark, the air around her damp and smelling of seawater. Half of her body was pressed up against something flat, hard and cold, palms spread against it. They shifted in an effort to move herself off of the stone.

Stone.

Floor, to be more specific. Gravity caught the girl off guard as she attempted to lift herself up off of the hard surface. It didn't help that she had next to no arm strength and that her breathing was sharp and jagged. Her lungs struggled for breath that wasn't there, air that tossed around in her throat and didn't know whether to go up or down. This wasn't really something she was used to, this breathing, and now that she was being forced to, she was having a tough time figuring out the instructions.

The girl let out a soft scream as she fell from the small height she had managed to lift herself up to. There she was, lying on the floor again, flailing around like a lowly majikarp in the middle of her own home. The scent of seawater began to sting at her right ankle, and a thought ran through the back of her mind about it, but the plausibility of scents stinging was an idea so garbled up with other notions of mortality that it barely even registered as anything more than static.

After a couple more seconds of struggling to breath, to sit, to attune herself to her strangely flesh-like body, the girl decided that it would be a better use of her time to pause and collect herself. A moment of her life was then spent lying on the floor.

Wasteful as it may seem, it did help point out to her a couple of noteworthy bullet points. For instance, the second that she stopped forcing herself to move, her breathing began to return to what she could only assume was a normal level, given that the pain involved in taking a breath dropped significantly. The next feeling to rush to her senses was that somewhere about mid-length up her body- her stomach, if she had to guess- was a dull ache of emptiness, like a hollow organ was nestled somewhere deep inside of her, screaming to be filled by unleashing a moderate cramp, her arms reflexively moving to cradle the affliction. The final realization was that her eyes were closed.

It made sense; her home was dark, but she should have at least been able to make out some details in the faint glow of the torches that Olivia made sure to keep lit. She fiddled with her own facial muscles for a moment, trying to remember how. It wasn't as though she had never closed her eyes before, of course- she _did_ have eyelids, but everything about her felt new and foreign, and it took her a moment longer than it should have in the panic that lingered to control herself. She hasn't experienced fear since the invasion from inland- which, mind you, was rather recent for an immortal being, but nowhere near the level it had elevated to now. There was something foreign inside of her causing that, causing her body to come alive and take on a mind of its own that messed with her. All of this, and her eyes were still closed.

Slowly, the girl peeled back her heavy lids, letting the soft glow of the altar torches flood her vision. Everything in the shrine itself was fairly normal, albeit a bit slanted from her position on the floor. Her statue was behind her, right smack in the middle, sitting atop the podium with two sets of stairs on either side; plant life surrounded her and her statue as she attempted once more to struggle into any kind of upright position. Eventually, the body she possessed gave a half-assed excuse for cooperation as the two meaty pegs sticking out of her thighs scrambled to adjust to her demands. Her abdomen twisted before finally letting out a breath of air from her still-recovering lungs as her new self leaned on the pegs, bent, pressing into the hard, cold stone to take one for the rest of her body.

So there the girl was. She vaguely recalled this position as kneeling- something her followers had done in front of her thousands of times- with both of her knees(?) poised against the floor, and she took another breath. Breathing was harder than she had remembered. Not that she had done it often before, but when she did, it was almost effortless. Her eyes fixated on the stone beneath her as she concentrated on her lungs. Two large jugs were attached to her chest; that was the issue. Well, that and the fact that when she tried to simply not breath, this foreign body complained quite violently, first alerting her to the unfamiliar pulse of something she instinctively knew to be vital but couldn't quite pin what, then making her throat scrunch, her limbs growing heavy under her weight. Finally, the discomfort became too great, and she gulped for another breath of air.

It was annoying, but at least the body voluntarily took responsibility for the task, allowing her to shift focus from the annoyance of her lungs to the overcast dullness of her home. Pink trim lined the walls around her as the life that had taken hold of her ruins (and carefully kept by her human followers) brought vibrance to an otherwise grey monument, but almost every color that had originally waved through the air had vanished, much to the girl's surprise. She blinked once, twice, moving her hands up to her eyes to rub away any debris that had nested there from her time spent lying on the floor. Unfortunately, removing a few specks of dust didn't cause the colors to return. All her eyes would show her was empty, lifeless air.

The girl opened her mouth to speak, but paused mid-breath, the words lulling back in her head. She shut it again. Too much to say and no one to say it to. Instead, she closed her eyes, focused on the center of her being, and…

The flat, pursed line of her lips fell immediately upon looking around her home once more. The magic glow of teleportation was missing. Instead of being met with the grassy green of the outside world or the sweet scents of grass-types clinging to the outskirts of the ruins, the only sight to welcome her was the one she had tried to bid farewell to.

The cramp in her stomach tightened, and she hunched over at the dull ache it brought with it.

Slowly, she swung her legs out from underneath so that the weight shifted onto her bum. They drifted over the side of the wide podium, the stinging sensation in her right ankle returning, but only slightly. It wasn't enough to overpower the gargles coming from her abdomen, and she winced again.

"Ow," the girl muttered, and a sweet scent she hadn't noticed before reached her nostrils, causing the pain to instantly intensify. She turned around, a little at first, spine cracking as it rejected the movement. She didn't care. Her stomach spotted the couple of berries cupped in a pile in front of her statue. It lifted one up, brought it to her mouth and took a bite.

She had eaten before, but never like this. The sweetness of the pink berry swirled around in her mouth, swimming alongside the slight bitter taste that was usually much stronger. Before she realized it, the girl had scarfed down the entire berry, stem and all, and was reaching for another. In less than a minute, two pecha berries, three oran berries and a handful of sitrus berries all vanished before her eyes. It didn't completely satisfy her, but it was enough for the time being.

The girl focused on her breathing again, taking a deep gulp of air as if she expected it to help calm her. To her surprise, it did. She took another, this time opening her mouth to exhale and moving one hand up to the spot that had contracted. There was something attached to her there, on her chest- something soft, squishy, coated with something smooth and silky.

Raising one eyebrow, she focused her attention down at where her hand was groping, and-

"OH MY GOD I HAVE BOOBS!"

The next fifteen seconds was spent staring at the jugs strapped to her chest, covered only by a small pink bikini top, and squishing them repeatedly with both hands. A smile lit up her eyes while a giggle emitted.

"I have booooobs!"

Her sing-song voice echoed through the walls of her chamber as she began to rise, slowly, placing one hand on the ground to steady herself and attempting to bring her feet out from under her. Unfortunately, dragging her feet along the stone was what directed her attention from her chest to her right ankle. There was an anklet on each made of bold green fake leaves to match the flower bracelets jiggling along her arms. Leaves weren't supposed to sting, were they? These were plastic, sure, but humans came into contact with them all the time, and she couldn't recall any of them ever having a reaction. Being the most social of her siblings, she should know.

Slowly, the girl peeled back her plastic leaves to reveal soft, tan skin akin to the brand on her arms. The only difference between her arm skin and her ankle skin was that along her ankle skin, she could clearly see a red streak running from the hard nub all the way to the front of the bendy skin. It seemed to be leaking, however when she brought a finger down to touch it, her reflexes ripped her hand back, and she let out a yelp.

"Owie," the girl whined, "that really hurt."

Her finger moved again to touch the red surface, and again the touch made a sharp pain shoot up her leg. She twisted her face in irritation. Well, that's mildly annoying. What was even more annoying was when she pressed her hands into the gravel beneath her, awkwardly attempting to swing her feet out to stand, her body screamed and forced her to stop mid-way due to the pain. In response, she huffed.

"I don't know what's going on, but quite frankly, I'm not impressed!"

As if the walls cared what she had to say. Her yelling did catch the attention of a lonely wingull pecking the stone floor aimlessly. It looked up from its perch- the floor just beneath the guardian's altar, half-hidden from the girl due to their angle. It looked up at Lele and cocked its head to the side.

Of course, this act of obliviousness only served to further contort her face in irritation.

"Yeah? And what do you want!"

When it merely hopped back at her voice, Lele found herself reaching for a nearby pebble to fling it at her imposing visitor. Though the aim was weak and hadn't come close to scuffing it, it flapped its wings forcefully and let out a loud screech, Tapu Lele shoving her hands over her ears and curling slightly to shield herself.

"How dare you!" she countered the moment the noise had died down. Her jaw was clenched with displeasure, palms now pressing against themselves into fists. "I will have you slaughtered for trying to attack me!"

It stared at her, beady eyes blank and piercing, attempting to assess whether or not she was a major threat. Her movements were jagged, as if injured, but her energy was hostile and chaotic. It let out another, much calmer squaw to test the waters, but only furthered its confusion when all that aggressive energy shut off like a light switch. It tilted its head to mirror hers and hopped an inch closer to the girl several feet above it. This was a strange human, that's for sure.

"What did you say?"

It squawed again. Now that the girl had stopped shouting at it and throwing things, it felt alright enough to lift itself in the air and flutter over to her- a bit clumsily, but wingull were known more for being sturdy than graceful. When it perched beside her, one more squaw was let out just to be sure, though it disliked the fact that her face entered a similar state it had been in when she first encountered it, perhaps a bit more irritation rather than full on anger.

"What are you saying! I need you to actually _speak!_ "

What, did this human think they could understand pokemon talk? What a silly human indeed. It cawed in laughter before lifting up to fly away, getting a mere few inches before hearing a loud, "Wait! Come back!"

It flew a little bit farther before doing a U-turn mid-air, just in time to see the girl rise to her feet and move forward. Only she didn't make her way for one of the staircases at the ends of the platform. Instead, she approached the edge as if the thin air were a staircase itself. The wingull screeched to alert her that there were no steps in her path, but she ignored it for a half-second long enough to find that out herself.

At first, Lele was startled, the feeling you get when you're trampling down the stairs and skip a step. The _oh god I'm falling_ feeling that goes away once you make contact with the surface just below where your foot should have gone. Unfortunately for her, the surface below where her foot should have gone was a story and a half beneath her, giving her plenty of room to lean forward, making herself a flat line for the second that she was in air.

The feeling of time stopping would be alleviated, of course, by the hard sensation of her entire front half smacking into stone. There was the darkness again. Her eyes were shut, but even then she could sense that it was more prevalent than last time. A burning pain sprouted from the space between her eyes (a nose, probably) as a dull ache rattled through the rest of her bones. When Lele opened her eyes again, what little she could see of the room around her was a haze.

There was screeching in the background, repetitive this time. It should've bothered her, but it sounded so distant that her mind hardly registered the sound, or the accompanying sound of a human male making his way down the pathway to her altar. One hand shook on its way up to her face, brushing beneath her nose and then hovering in front of her eyes to see the same sticky red that had oozed from her foot. It was gushing now, liquid burning her nostrils and clogging up her breath. A ringing drowned out the human male's shouts that had now pierced through her altar room, and it was just moments later that she felt someone else's hands on her body, tilted her head to see someone else's face hovering over hers, smelling a mix of iron and the heavy scent of sea-soaked skin from the shirtless man. He was saying something, but the ringing was too loud for her to make out what, so she ignored him and looked back at her hand. The parts that weren't outside her narrowing range of vision were streaked with ooze. Was there more now? She thought so, but maybe it was just the darkness consuming her again.

* * *

 **I'm back. I have no idea for how long, or how frequently, or literally anything else, but for now, I'm back.**

 **I'm also posting this on my A03 account, Kuraiku- bare with me, because I've never posted anything there before.**


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